We're just about halfway through the King's X urban pioneers project I think, and it has been a busy couple of days. But the past three days have been very engaging, we have found out alot about the area and for someone who lives local like myself, it has been very interesting as I didn't know how much history my area had, it makes me see the area in a completely new light, and I'm sure the group feel the same.
From the top, on Friday 12 Feb, we meet a rather chipper Alastair Lansley, the cheif architect who completely redesigned St Pancras international station. For a man in his position, he was surprising an approachable and friendly chap. And for 13 years of dedicating his life to this project, it was impressive to see because he was still enthusiastic about the project as one could see his eyes light up as he was going through his presentation. And the dynamic between Alastair and Ian Gardner, the cheif engineers, added a new light to the project as they went from talking about the great glass roof to cutting the hole for the promenade under the tracks to the pillars and to the cost of each handmade brick (£14.50), which was very thought provoking. Then Alastair toured us around the station he designed and he showed us the importance of the small details, from the way that the advertising board blend into the walls to the way the metallic structure meets with the old red bricks was fascinating.
On Monday 15, the plan was to go Lille for the day but of course the tradegy of the train crash put an abrupt halt to the proceedings, which made the day a whole lot stressfull and challenging. But looking to the good points of the day, the company made the time go by quicker and the fiasco with Kofi's great time management made me laugh, but i think Ruby would strongly disagree. Also, meeting Tom Dyckhoff, a writer for The Times, put our minds off the cancallations as we could fire questions at him as he's a friendly and funny guy. And we got advice about career plans, the real down-to-earth talk about further education and career plan, it was refreshing to hear stuff we could use through our lives. So all in all, yes the trains were cancelled and no trip to Lille but I was with good company, met Tom and we're going sometime in March. So a bitter-sweet day with more sweet than bitter.
And finally, today Wednesday 17, we first met Richard Knight, the the head of local history at the Holborn Library, gave us a presentation about the King's X voices presentation. Which comprises of the recording of local people in that area describing what it was like to live in King's X when it was a red-light district, during the war, growing up, during the regeneration and other similar topics. But I didn't think recordings of local people wouldn't be enough to grab the attention of 16-18 year olds but I was glad to be wrong as they were fascinating and engaging to listen to, and some great characters and stories emerged which painted a wonderful picture of King's X, and the people really made it great to listen to. And the stuff that Richard was saying like the Tonbridge boys club and popularity the boys ballet club there was very interesting and surprised me as I didn't know this was happening long ago. Next we met Alan Dein, who is a BBC radio 4 broadcaster and is the oral historian for the King's X vocies project, he worked in this project and around King's X for 4/5 years so he knew alot about the area. And his job as a freelance broadcaster, which meant meeting lots of different people, recording sounds and atomspheres, and building up knowledge about an area was fascinating for me and he looked like he really loved his job. But the highlight of the day was meeting all those different characters, it was quite refreshing and I wish I could remember all the names of those we interviewed but we got great material and made that day quite special. And I did get interviewed myself which was daunting to have the group ask me questions and to be put on the spot like that but it was great to visit those memerios again of my childhood that I haven't looked back on for years, I hope it comes out all right.
So that's it so far, thanks to Ruby for organizing all of this so far and I'm looking forward to the next couple of days.
Antony